20 Movies That Are Flawed Masterpieces

20. Noah (2014)

Darren Aronofsky isn't the first person that springs to mind when you say "biblical blockbuster," but who'd have thought a $150 million dollar film based on the story of Noah could find itself made in 2014? But as one has come to expect from the likes of Aronofsky, this work is a strange, flawed and yet somehow riveting piece of cinema - a blockbuster unlike any other and the very definition of a "flawed masterpiece."

To tell his version of the Noah story, Aronofsky enlists Russell Crowe to play the man of the title, essentially an anti-hero, tasked with saving the world from sin. What is unexpected, however, is the way in which Aronofsky renders his film with a tone that feels like a cross between a young adult fantasy adaptation and a historical epic. The results are jarring, because who anticipated giant rock monsters and huge, violent battle scenes in Noah? And yet there is a strange, otherness to Noah that means that it lingers with you afterwards. There is a fine line between tosh and genius, and this movie emphasises that brilliantly.